Turn Your Dubai Layover Into A Short Holiday

Five ideas for enjoying Dubai’s diversity.

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Before they visit Dubai, people have preconceptions about it — simplified ideas of what it will be like.

I had preconceptions myself. Before I visited Dubai, I really wasn’t interested in it. I saw pictures of big skyscrapers and very flashy over the top opulence, and I thought, “That’s not me, so I’m not interested in going to Dubai.”

But fortunately, I have friends who live there, who said it wasn’t exactly how I thought it was. So I went to visit — and had one of the times of my life. I discovered a place that has much more nuance and diversity than what I had been expecting.

I was expecting skyscrapers; expensive, overpriced, poor-value food; and everyone going over the top yet at the same time being restricted by a very conservative Islamic culture. That was my idea of Dubai.

Yet it’s absolutely not what Dubai is.

Over the years I’ve used Dubai as a stopover destination. Whenever I had a flight, especially a long one, I would go with Emirates. I would fly over Dubai and add on one or two days to the journey so I could have a layover, enjoy a complete change of scenery, have a holiday within a holiday, and of course, see my friends.

And every single time I visited, the layover has been completed different.

Layover 1 — Brunch

The classic Dubai layover is to go the weekend. There, weekend is Friday and Saturday. And on Friday, most of the restaurants in the entire Emirate host brunch. Brunch is usually a three- or four-hour long affair (or even longer), where the food and drinks are included in one set price.

So you go to brunch at a very nice restaurant, pay a single fee and get as much fine food and cocktails, fine wine and whiskey, and everything else, as you can drink. And at five o’clock in the afternoon you stumble out into the blazing desert sun and wonder what on earth just happened.

By eight o’clock you’re probably in bed. By the next morning you’re quite hungover — but you still think if you could do brunch every single Friday for the rest of you life, you’d do it. Because it’s so much fun to be in a place where everybody comes in together, has the same menu and the same opportunity of indulgence, and everybody’s on the same vibe — just wanting to go there, to unwind, enjoy their weekend, have fun, have brunch. So that’s one layover.

Layover 2 — Desert Camp

Another layover is to go to the desert and stay in a desert camp. And what I really like about Dubai is, it’s so easy to get to the desert. People complain and say, “Oh, it’s not the real desert.” What do they mean?

This is a real desert. The sand dunes are massive. There’s nothing else there. The stars at night are absolutely fabulous.

If you want to go to the very middle of the Sahara, good luck. But Dubai makes the desert — the really wild desert — accessible. Especially a place like Al Maha, where you find escapism, solitude, refinement — looking up from your suite and seeing a herd of galloping Arabian oryx; mountains around you; stepping out on camels, learning about falconry, experiencing a bedouin way of life. A completely different experience to going to brunch.

And because it’s so accessible, it really works. It can just be one day. Touch down, 24 hours in the desert, take off again. A holiday within a holiday.

Layover 3 — Sightseeing

The other Dubai layover can be exploring, sightseeing. Visiting the Burj Khalifa and going to the top. Having afternoon tea in the Burj Al Arab. Going to a resort on the Palm. Going to a variety of modern, quite over the top attractions, that the Emirate has. Perhaps doing a cruise on Dubai Creek, or renting a yacht and going out in the Harbour.

A kind of very traditional holiday in that sense, just like you would go on a city break. Well, that’s also Dubai, if you want it to be. You can spend one day, or a few days, checking out the variety of incredible things the Emirate has to offer.

Layover 4 — Abu Dhabi

Yet another layover is to touch down in Dubai and go to Abu Dhabi, in the nearby Emirate.

Abu Dhabi is less than two hours away, but the atmosphere and the style are completely different. It’s more conservative, more down to earth. It’s also more elegant and more refined. It is more Arabic and Islamic.

Again, a holiday within a holiday.

Layover 5 — A Spa In A Five-Star Hotel

If you’re short on time — maybe you’ve only got eight hours for a layover, maybe 16 or 24 hours between flights — the other option is to really enjoy the Dubai facilities.

No other place in the world has such an abundance of outstanding five-star hotels. Within those hotels are incredibly good spas. So if you’ve been travelling a lot, there’s the holiday within the holiday again — stop by for a spa and the night in the five-star.

I’ve always found that because there are such different vibes and atmospheres going on in Dubai, you can have a different trip every single time. You can always do what you want to do — then go back six months later and do something completely different.

By Stephen Bailey. Edited by Beatriz Becker.

For more insights and inspiration, check us out at Unorthodox Travel.